


Room

by atria



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - All Media Types, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré
Genre: Happy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:28:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23960833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atria/pseuds/atria
Summary: Bill and Jim in 1938. They don't know everything about each other yet.
Relationships: Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux
Comments: 5
Kudos: 81





	Room

Jim was thinking. The way he did this was by moving; Bill could feel the sear of his big hands here, and here, and here. He let his head fall back but kept his eyes closed. Never let anyone see you working.

There was a pause and then fingers on his eyelids. Thumbs, probably, and gentle. Bill understood the request for what it was and refused it. 

“Don’t mind me, I’m guessing.”

An exasperated little puff of air on his face told him just what Jim thought of that. “No need to guess if you look.” But Bill thought he might be smiling too.

“You know, you can tell a lot about a person with your eyes shut,” he said conversationally. “You told me yourself, you try to see yourself topple all the other blokes and get your hands round the ball before you pounce. It’s like that, it all focuses in the mind. Like-- like a Vermeer.” 

The last words came out as a gasp, for Jim had lowered himself on his elbows so that they were touching entirely, tip to tail. “Look,” he said again, his face hot in the inch of air between them. And something caught in Bill’s throat at the remnant shyness. Jim never said ‘me’ or ‘I’, if he could help it.

He stuck out his tongue and caught the corner of Jim’s mouth. It was warm and a bit bristly and there was a faint tremor in his jaw. He breathed out on the skin there, waiting. 

At last he sensed the little shift in Jim’s stance, the way the powerful body centered. In the small dark he thought he could also hear the click in the mind. “I want you to look,” Jim said, and this time he sounded sure. Bill found he wanted to obey. At this distance he could see Jim’s lashes were incongruously fine, even as the whole of him was so close it blurred. Love, I can see you better when you ask. 

The look on Jim’s face told him he might have shown more than he realised.


End file.
